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Son of God

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"Son of God" is a phrase from the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), and the New Testament. In the holy Hebrew scriptures, according to Jewish religious tradition, it is related to many diverse subjects, as to angels, humans and even all mankind. According to most christian traditions, it refers to Jesus alone, whom they believe to be the "only begotten" (lit. "unique", "one and only") Son of God. Similar terms were widespread during the life of Jesus, as Roman emperor Augustus was known as the "son" of the deified Julius Caesar.

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[edit] "Sons of God" according to Judaism

[edit] In the Tanakh

In the Tanakh, the phrase "son(s) of god" has multiple meanings:

  • The Hebrew phrase Benei Elohim, often translated as "sons of God", describes angels or immensely powerful human beings. See Genesis 6:2-4 and Book of Job 1:6. Many Bible scholars believe that this reflects usage in pre-Biblical near-eastern mythology.
  • It is used to denote a human judge or ruler (Psalm 82:6, "children of the Most High"; in many passages "gods" and "judges" seem to be equations). In a more specialized sense, "son of God" is a title applied only to the real or ideal king over Israel (II Samuel 7: 14, with reference to King David and those of his descendants who carried on his dynasty; comp. Psalm 89:27, 28).
  • Israel as a people is called God's "son", using the singular form (comp. Exodus 4: 22 and Hosea 11:1).

In the Tanakh the term itself does not connote any form of physical descent from, or unity of essence with, God. The Hebrew idiom conveys an expression of holyness (=to be special) or great power.

In Judaism the term "son of God" is rarely used in the sense of "messiah, or anointed ones." Psalm 2 refers to God's appointed king of Zion as both God's messiah (an anointed king) and like a son of god.

In Judaism, it is through such personal relations that the individual becomes conscious of God's fatherhood, and gradually in Hellenistic and rabbinical literature "sonship to God" was ascribed first to every Israelite and then to every member of the human race (Abot 3:15, 5:20; Ber. 5:1; see Abba). In one midrash, the Torah is poetically said to be God's "daughter", (Leviticus Rabbah 20); - the Shabbat is said to be a queen.

[edit] "Son of God" in Christian terms

[edit] In the New Testament

The New Testament uses "Son of God" to refer to Jesus and to a larger body of followers of Jesus. Because there was no explanation of the former, interpretations have abounded including, but not limited to, the following.

[edit] In the Deuterocanon (Apocrypha) and Pseudepigrapha

This literature contains a few passages in which the title "son of God" is given to the anointed person or Mashiach (see Enoch, 55:2; IV Esdras 7:28-29; 13:32, 37, 52; 14:9); but the title belongs also to any one whose piety has placed him in a filial relation to God (see Wisdom 2:13, 16, 18; 5:5, where "the sons of God" are identical with "the saints"; comp. Ecclesiasticus [Sirach] iv. 10).

Because most of the Jewish doctrines concerning the Son of God were found in the Deuterocanon, it has been widely speculated for centuries that it was because of the frequent use of these books by the Early Christians, that the Sanhedrin at Yavneh rejected them around AD 80. Ironically, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman state in the 4th century, the bishops appointed by Emperor Constantine rejected these very same books, on the grounds that the Sanhedrin had thrown them out. See Biblical canon for details.

[edit] Jesus as divine

The most popular view, at least among lay Christians and conservative Christian scholars, is that Jesus as the son of God described his divinity. The logic behind this view is that because God is Jesus' Father and his Father is divine, Jesus is also divine. (In the same way, because Jesus' mother is human, he is human. This logic reflects rather the plurality of God than his unity and is often referred to as the Hypostatic Union) Similarly, in accordance with the ancient importance of inheritance, Jesus would inherit his fathers position as divine. Some also see the title as an oblique reference to Proverbs 30:4. The Bible refers to the Deity of Jesus in Hebrews 1:8. Here God calls His Son God, but this translation is also disputed, see Raymond E. Brown's Does the NT call Jesus God? for the technical discussion. Whose testimony is greater in the case of those who do not believe in Jesus' divinity, God's or His own? In John 8:58, Jesus states, "Before Abraham was, I am." This is the same proclamation of God in Exodus 3:14, who revealed his name: "And God said to Moses, "Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh." He continued, "Thus shall you say to the Israelites, 'Ehyeh sent me to you.'".

[edit] Jesus as godly

A few christian scholars[citation needed] hold that in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus styled himself the Son of God in the same sense as any righteous persons might call themselves "sons" or "children" of God. However, while many of the Israelites portrayed in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible speak in the name of God ("The LORD says this ..."), Jesus often spoke by his own authority as rabbi (for example, "Truly, I teach to you ..."). He also claimed to hold the power to forgive sins, a power that is notioned by Judaism as belonging solely to God (as the commandment says "...no other God but me..."). However, a key tenent of Pharisaic Judaism is that each person has the power, indeed the obligation, to forgive sins committed by others against them, see also Judaism and Christianity, Discourse on ostentation#Prayer.

In either case, Christians point out that this interpretation does not conflict the New Testament's portrayal of Jesus as super-human and human-god, namely the miraculous resurrection of God-the Son from the realm of the dead, miracle working, forgiveness of sins, and judgement over all people.

[edit] Jesus as messiah

That "son of God" sometimes means messiah (=anointed person rather than "godly person") in the New Testament, is also acknowledged in the Bauer lexicon, a dictionary of Koine Greek begun by Walter Bauer. This is supported by the references to the Messiah as son of God in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (see above).

In the first century, Messiah was a political office. The New Testament might threaten the political authority of caesar who also took the title "Son of God" as shown by ancient, Roman coinage. See also Render unto Caesar....

[edit] Christians

In the First Epistle of John, the writer writes that Jesus "to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12 New Living Translation) and repeats this in 3:1. In like manner, the Gospel of Matthew records Jesus saying, "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." (Matthew 12:50 New Living Translation) It is common to hear Christians refer to each other as "children of God." However, the adoptive heirship enjoyed by Christians is a secondary one, derived from the primary sonship relationship of the Son with the Father (cf. Galatians 3:26).

[edit] In modern English usage

In modern English usage, the Son of God is almost always a reference to Jesus Christ in religious contexts. In other contexts it may be taken as one sex of the children of god, which connotates all humankind on earth.

[edit] "Son of God" in other belief systems

Human or part-human offspring of deities are very common in other religions and mythologies. A great many pantheons also included genealogies in which various gods were descended from other gods, and so the term "son of a god" may be applied to many actual deities as well.

Ancient mythology contains many characters with both a human parent and god parent. This includes Hercules whose father was Zeus and Virgil's Aeneas whose mother is Venus.

In the greek and roman cultures in which early Christianity arose, the concepts of a son or a daughter of god, halfgods as Perseus was, where commonly known and accepted, as was the idea of Jesus as a god-and-human, son of God, invented by Paul.

In the Rastafari movement it is Haile Selassie who is considered to be God the Son, as a part of the Holy Trinity by insistent followers. He himself never accepted the idea officially or otherwise.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest recorded legends of humanity, Gilgamesh claimed to be of both human and divine descent.

In Hindu mythology, gods often took human form; most often, it was the god Vishnu who incarnated as a great ruler or teacher such as Krishna. For example in the Ramayana, Rama is said to be half god. His next younger brother is one-fourth god, the next is one-eighth, and so on. (In this way, all of the brothers together could never be one hundred per cent God no matter how many brothers there were.)

[edit] In Popular Culture

F. Scott Fitzgerald offers another view on being the Son of God in his 1925 novel "The Great Gatsby"

The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty

[edit] See also

[edit] References

References of the devil or demons calling Jesus Son of God:

References to humans calling Jesus Son of God:

Jesus referring to himself as the Son of God:

[edit] External links

cs:Boží syn de:Sohn Gottes es:Hijo de Dios eo:Filo de Dio it:Figlio di Dio nl:Zoon van God pl:Syn Boży pt:Filho de Deus zh:聖子

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